We, participants of the round table, representatives of public associations, political parties, trade unions and women’s movement, having listened to the reports and discussed the execution of the electoral legislation of the Republic of Belarus during the past stages of the electoral campaign, state the following:

Electoral commissions of all levels were being formed with disrespect to all principles of openness and democracy, gross violations of the legal rights of political parties and public associations. We are concerned with the numerous cases when electoral commissions are formed of the persons who belong to one working collective, which can result in usage of the administrative resource for manipulation of the election results.

Registration of candidates to deputy positions was carried out in unfavorable atmosphere and was often accompanied with pressurization of the candidates (threats of job quitting, check-up of taxation bodies, etc.). As a result, hundreds of possible candidates had to refuse from participation in the election.

Rulings of the Central Electoral Commission and explanations of other State bodies didn’t favor democratic and open nature of the election either. They considerably worsened the conditions for registration of candidates to deputy positions, meetings with the electorate, manufacture of agitation products and monitoring of the election. The protocol form, adopted by the Central Electoral Commission, doesn’t specify the results of separate votes’ calculation, which can also lead to manipulation of the votes and falsification of the election results.

We, participants of the round table, state that during the organization of the abovementioned electoral process stages the authorities ignored recommendations of BDIHR OSCE, Association of Election Organizers in the Central and Eastern Europe and the proposals for democratization and improvement of the electoral legislation of the Republic of Belarus, submitted by representatives of political parties and public organizations. All these facts let us conclude that the election into the Local Deputy Soviets doesn’t meet the international standards for elections and the legitimacy of the local authorities elected in such conditions is doubtful.